They may not be the prestige marque you want, but for sheer practicality, I'd be looking at the new Mazda 3 (I prefer the 6 but you said "small"), and the Opel Mokka. You've got so many variations on interior spec. I've had 2 brand new Mokkas as hire cars for 3 weeks each. I didn't like the diesel version with push button handbrake, but the other just had everything you could possibly need exactly where it should be. With Mazdas, after years of driving Renault and BMW, Mazda were the first cars I owned where everything in the cabin felt logical. After decades of driving Alfas and Mercs, my OH borrowed my Mazda for a few weeks when his car was in the garage and was also converted.

As for your issue with black cars, it's a 'thing'.
Back in the days when the UK had yellow street lights, my car mechanic dad refused to have yellow or green cars because they 'disappeared' under those lights. With white lights, your eye dispells a black object as static or you cannot correctly guage the speed it's travelling at.

Quote:

White, gold, and yellow are deemed to be the safest. It’s not an exact science, but research using police data of more than 850,000 accidents over 20 years suggests that some shades are more visible on the road than others.
Black vehicles, for example, are harder to see as they do not always stand out against the road or background scenery.
During daylight hours, black cars were up to 12% more likely be involved in crashes than white vehicles.
At dawn and dusk when the light is poor, the figure rose to 47%. The visibility of grey, silver, red and blue cars can also be poor.
A study in New Zealand also looked at the link between car colour and accident rates.
It too concluded that black cars were the most accident prone. But it found that silver was the safest colour – contradicting the other research.